An Excellent Father
by ipodrocker16
Summary: Henry Higgins is awoken in the middle of the night by his crying baby boy James, and comforts him in a way that is uniquely Higgins. One-shot.


**A/N: Hi everyone! This is a My Fair Lady one-shot that I've had ready for over two months, but haven't let myself post until I updated my Pride and Prejudice story called Without the First Couple! I hope you like it!**

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Henry Higgins was awakened from a rather pleasant dream by a rather unpleasant sound. It was a very common noise to be heard at 27A Wimpole Street, but that did not make Henry like it any more than he would have had it been a noise heard once in a lifetime.

It was the sound of a child crying. Henry's child, actually. He was still not accustomed to having a child, as Henry Higgins had been a confirmed bachelor until the age of 37. Henry would have been content to remain that way for the rest of his life, were it not for Eliza. The young woman he had turned from scum off of the street into a lady happened to be Mrs. Henry Higgins. It had been rather humiliating for Henry to realize that somewhere throughout their arguments and speech lessons he had fallen in love with her.

They had gotten married five months after the Embassy Ball, and a year later Henry finally felt that he was used to married life. The very next day, Eliza had told him that she was with child.

But thoughts of how much his life had changed since he met Eliza would have to wait, as one and a half year old James Higgins was awake and crying.

Henry turned over on his side and looked at his wife. It appeared that Eliza had not heard her son awaken, and was sleeping peacefully, a fact that made Henry quite envious of his wife.

"Eliza. Eliza, wake up, the child is crying." Henry gently shook her shoulder. Eliza stirred, but did not wake up.

"Eliza. Eliza. ELIZA. Elizzzaaaaaa- Oh, you are awake." Henry's whining was put to a halt by his wife turning over in their bed and hitting him with a pillow.

She yawned and asked sleepily, "What do you need, Henry?"

"James is crying, and I cannot sleep!"

Eliza rolled her eyes and yawned again. "Then go comfort him so he will stop crying."

Henry gaped at her. "Why the devil would I do that? Eliza, you are his mother, can't you make him stop?"

His wife muttered, "Yes, but I am much too tired to do so." Eliza then fell asleep.

Grumbling something about how letting a woman in his life led to an immense lack of sleep, Henry got out of bed and walked through the door to the adjoining room that held James' nursery. The room was blue and brown, and appeared in every way to be the stereotypical nursery, apart from the shelf of books by Keats, Milton, Shakespeare, and other classic authors. Henry had insisted upon the selection, claiming that he did not want his son to become a "completely uneducated dolt like Freddy Eynsford-Hill".

As his gaze settled on his son's bed in the corner, Henry's eyes softened. Although he was certainly not used to being a father, he did indeed like it. What was not to like about little James Hugh Higgins? He was the spitting image of his father, except for his eyes, which were the same hazel-green as his mother. The boy was adored by everyone, and spoiled mercilessly by his grandmother Higgins. His godfather and namesake, Colonel Hugh Pickering, frequently declared that he was "the most handsome youngster ever to be seen". Henry found himself agreeing with that statement more fervently than he was comfortable with.

He bent over the crib to look at little James. The toddler immediately stopped crying at the sight of his father's face. When James was born, Higgins had been delighted to spot the obvious similarity between himself and his son, but as he grew, Henry found himself more excited by how James appeared to idolize his father. In the rare cases where Eliza could not seem to calm James down, she would simply hand him to Henry and the boy would stop crying. It was something that Henry constantly teased Eliza about, and had, on several occasions, resulted in his slippers being thrown at his head. Not that he particularly minded, as he usually made Eliza repay him with a kiss.

"There now, James, you don't want to make your beloved father go deaf, do you?" Unlike most people, Henry Higgins did not use a different, softer tone of voice for young children. For the very few children Henry had to deal with in his lifetime, it was because he did not want to appear foolish, cooing to a young child. But with James, it was simply that he wanted his son to experience the majesty of the English language in a _proper_ accent. Eliza found this extremely ridiculous and amusing at the same time.

He sat down with James in the rocking chair and began to rock his son to sleep. "Now James, repeat after me; the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain."

James giggled and said, "No Dada, me no like sprain." Henry had been attempting to teach his 18 month old son to speak proper English by using the same phrases and techniques he had with Eliza when he was her teacher. Needless to say, it wasn't working. Eliza had tried to explain to Henry that children weren't meant to learn proper English grammar before age five, but Henry insisted that James was a fast learner and would be the "only intelligent child in London" by the time he was done with him at age two.

That was one bet that Colonel Pickering did not want to make with Henry.

"No James," Henry reprimanded, "You say 'I do not like', not 'me no like'. And I do not understand why you insist on calling it 'sprain'. It is a fun phrase to say, not a pain in your ankle!" James just giggled again.

"But dada," James said sweetly, "Sprain _is_ pain!" He then broke into a laughing fit.

Henry smiled fondly at his son. When James had first started speaking, he had tried to teach him to say "father". Eventually, Henry grew accustomed to hearing James say "dada" every day, and found it rather endearing.

"Now James, I am afraid that you must get back to bed. Normally your mother would have put you back to sleep, but when I tried to wake her up, she hit me on the head with a pillow! Can you believe that?" Henry ruffled James' hair affectionately, making his son laugh again.

Despite his claims that the toddler needed to go to sleep, Henry spent the next two hours talking to his son. Only at three in the morning did Henry realize that at one point, James had fallen asleep.

Laughing at how carried away he had gotten, Henry carefully put James back in his bed, realizing how tired he was himself.

He made his way back into the master bedroom and got into bed beside his wife. Once sleep had almost taken him, he felt the warm lips of his wife kiss him on the cheek and say, "You are an excellent father, Henry."

Henry just smiled and pulled Eliza closer to him.

THE END

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**A/N: If you liked it, didn't like it, whatever, just tell me in a REVIEWWWWW! Also, check out my other My Fair Lady one-shot called Falling Asleep! Review, my friends! **


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